Site Mobile Navigation

Putin Meets and Praises Agents After Swap With U.S.

FOROS, Ukraine (Reuters) — Russia’s prime minister, Vladimir V. Putin, said Saturday that he had met with Russian agents swapped in an exchange with the United States this month, and promised them a good future in Russia.

“I have no doubts they will have interesting, bright lives,” Mr. Putin, a former K.G.B. agent, told reporters during a visit to Ukraine.

Ten people pleaded guilty this month to being agents for Russia while living under cover in the United States in one of the biggest spy scandals since the cold war. The agents, who worked without diplomatic cover, led apparently normal lives in the United States, with some raising children and one family being described by a neighbor as “suburbia personified.”

In exchange for the agents, Russia released four people imprisoned there for suspected contact with Western intelligence agencies.

Mr. Putin did not say where he met the agents, but said he expressed his admiration and sang Soviet songs with them.

“As far as those people are concerned, every one of them had a tough life,” he said. “First was to master foreign language as your own. Think and speak it and do what you are told to do for the interest of your motherland for many years without counting on diplomatic immunity.”

A version of this article appears in print on July 25, 2010, on Page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: Putin Meets and Praises Agents After Swap With U.S. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe